1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and system for analyzing trends in an information aggregate. More particularly, it relates to identifying and visualizing the intersections (or overlaps) between information aggregates.
2. Background Art
Existing systems for knowledge management are focused primarily on individuals and the documents they create. Such systems typically organize documents along two primary dimensions, as follows:    1. A physical dimension that reflects a fundamental unit of storage in the underlying system. Examples of physical units of storage include a Notes database (NSF) or a QuickPlace.    2. A topical dimension that collects documents together based on their content or expected usage. Examples of the logical dimension include categories (to group documents that are concerned with a particular topic) or collections (to group documents that are serving a particular purpose).
The user interfaces in existing information systems are therefore concerned with displaying information along these two dimensions. Search interfaces, for example, often allow a search to be defined based on both the physical and topical dimensions, and of course are focused on returning documents. This approach is useful, but it fails to account for the fact that most work of consequence happens in teams and not at the level of individuals. There is therefore a need to better align information systems with the way people really work by presenting information in terms of groups (for example, teams or communities).
The Lotus Discovery Server (LDS) is a Knowledge Management (KM) tool that allows users to more rapidly locate the people and information they need to answer their questions. It categorizes information from many different sources (referred to generally as knowledge repositories) and provides a coherent entry point for a user seeking information. Moreover, as users interact with LDS and the knowledge repositories that it manages, LDS can learn what the users of the system consider important by observing how users interact with knowledge resources. Thus, it becomes easier for users to quickly locate relevant information.
The focus of LDS is to provide specific knowledge or answers to localized inquiries; focusing users on the documents, categories, and people who can answer their questions. There is a need, however, to use the information that LDS collects from observing the users to discover and quantify relationships that may exist between arbitrary aggregates of information, such as document collections.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide an improved system and method for evaluating relationships between information aggregates.